


If Dean Was An Artist

by Natural_Log



Series: Natural Logs "Song" Inspired Fics [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natural_Log/pseuds/Natural_Log
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean sits, years after "retiring", and tries to get out the feelings he has onto a canvas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Dean Was An Artist

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely, LOOSELY based on "If I Were An Artist" by Jake Coco. If you don't know the song, google it. Good stuff. This was inspired by that and kept rattling around in my head until I wrote it down. Sho here it be, without a beta.

It’s been years... years since they hunted. Sam moved out, but Dean isn’t surprised. He knew the nerd never really liked his bat cave but in the back of his mind Dean wonders if maybe staying around all of the hunter memorabilia was what did it. He’s back in California or something. School. Work. Who knows.

Dean sips his beer and looks up at the sky from his lawn chair. It’s old and smells like mold but it reclines, so Dean likes it. He’s got it set up above the entrance to his manly man hide out. The hunter stuff doesn’t bother him a bit. He still likes going shooting. Knowing how to defend himself. Just because the demons and other nasties aren’t causing trouble doesn’t mean humanity can’t get into plenty on its own.

The canvas in front of him is blank, and it kind of bothers him but it’s also kind of relaxing. Nobody knew he was the artist in the family. They all figured Sam the long haired hippy moose was the artist. But he was the mathematician, the logic one. Deans the one with the guitar, the soulful voice that used to lure in women.

Dean’s the one holding a beer bottle and a paintbrush.

He gets the urge to just fling paint like an angry monkey with shit. But that part is is old and bitter and he’s gotten really good at resisting. He finishes the beer and pulls another from the ice chest, realizing it’s the last one.

“Shit,” he mutters, popping the top off on the arm of his chair. He throws half of it back anyway, thinking being drunk might just help.

It’s not like he wants to be out here, freezing his ass off in the middle of winter. But one urge he never learned to stifle, this one craving need to just open his heart and let it spill out all the things he doesn’t want to say or think about.

Maybe... he touches his chest with three fingers. Maybe if he just rips it out...

Suddenly he’s laughing. Yeah, right. He takes another swig of the beer. The color palette is laid out next to him, a few cheap paints, watercolors, markers. A bright crimson shade catches his eye, jogs his memory and for a second he can smell the tang of blood, can nearly taste it. He breathes through his nose and tilts his head at the canvas, seeing something.

His muse is drenched in blood. It's dripping from his fingers at his sides, curls down the side of his face drawing it into contrast. There's splashes of it around him, this muted colored figure, splashes across his coat. It might be a murderer, might be a victim.

But no. His head has this certain cock, his eyes narrowed and eyebrows drawn down in concern. Dean knows this face. It's the face of a man who thinks he's too late, that he can't save someone. One hand is halfway reaching, fingers limp as though he doesn't really want to touch but reaches anyway.

Dean jerks back and shakes his head. He doesn't want to paint that. He doesn't want to see that anymore, it's something he's painted and painted and painted but it never gets out of his heart.

Besides, he doesn't have enough red.

Oddly enough he has a lot of green. Dean nudges the palette, making a face at the color. Green is like salads, like grass and trees. There's not a lot of green in Deans life. Not literally.

He thinks about Sam eating a caesar one night at Bobby's. There isn't anything special about the night, except Bobby was still alive enough to grunt at Sam's dinner. They all ended up laughing about it, and then Dean sees something in the canvas.

The figure is in the shadows behind their dinner table, the light barely touches the side of his face and the hand resting on the door frame. They didn't see him there, but Dean can bet he was watching one time or another. Longing, as he did. He wanted to join them, but he wasn't one of the family, he was an outsider looking in at happiness and trying to get warmth from their fire.

That isn't envious enough.

Dean rolls his neck and looks.

Again his muse is watching from the shadows but it isn't a family gathering he's envious of this time. Just out of frame there is a tangle of legs, two long and shapely, two strong and coated with short hair. Were the painting about them Dean would have used warm tones, but for his muse in this scene it's cold. Green and grey, eyes lingering on the couple, longing but also envy strong in the set of his mouth and eyes, the way he strains to keep himself back.

It hurts to think that way for long, so he makes a face and rubs his cheek.

On a whim he reaches for a rag. It's stained, he's not sure what he's looking for in it.

Underneath the black grease marks its a taupe color. Dean remembers when Sam bought them, saying the color was supposed to be soothing. It doesn't sooth Dean. It makes him think of a trenchcoat, gripping a shoulder under it, twisting his hands into the collar. He sees his muse, pupils wide like he's high. His lips are parted, hands above his head and coat hanging open to reveal a strong chest marked with scars, the lines of his neck drawn in shades of brown and the slightest bit of black where someone bit too hard.

Dean jerks back into his chair, dropping his rag. No, not taupe.

Gold comes to mind, but Dean doesn't have that color.

"Figures," he mutters, voice dark and rough, "golden gates, golden halos, golden light. Immortal, everlasting." He realizes he's rambling and stops, bites his lip.

The words are bubbling up now that he's opened his mouth. "I mean, heavenly and divine screams gold, right? Does that make you honest?" He swallows some beer, "Can it make you sincere, and just tell me already?"

His hand scrapes across the canvas as he stands up, nerves fizzling.

"I suppose I could use scarlet, vertical lines and strain because you're pulling up, dragging as hard as you can against the deadweight. Or clover, you said there was a heaven you liked that was a simple yard. We talked about a lot of heavens, remember?"

Dean chokes off at the end, swallows more beer. "And those dumb flowers. Sam is a dick. What were they, violets? A bouquet of violets for me, you asked for green ferns too and I kept asking why florists even use forest underbrush, that doesn't seem very romantic but you shrugged and said it suited me. Suited me! What in the world made Sam think I was a flower guy..."

The words stop as suddenly as they came, and he's left standing behind his chair staring at an empty canvas. It's not relaxing anymore. He wants to throw it and his paint off a cliff.

The sky rumbles then, and he glances up at the swirling grey masses. They remind him of a day, the sky was grey and bleak and it was foggy. His muse watched him, and his eyes...

They were usually this smooth blue tone, sapphire or blue crystals, sparkling and mischievous or dark with intent. Sometimes even light with laughter, or deep when- when Dean-

But that day they were broken. Thousands of fractured blue shards contained in his eyes.

Dean sits, grabs his brush and all the shades of blue he has. Everything else is faded in the image, smooth lines and hints of features but the eyes are what haunts Dean. The hurt, the absolute pain. Dean tries to not drown in it.

Just as he's about to lay down the first stroke he pauses. Breathes.

****

\-------

Cas watches as Dean struggles to paint. It's been eons for the angel since he had seen his human, eons of torture and darkness.

He doesn't want to think about it anymore. He got away. Dean is still alive. He still has time. Cas has fallen so far from angel that he didn't even care when memories began merging into fantasies, when his longing emerged from within with the harsh bite of missed opportunities.

Still, when he stands before this man he hesitates. Cas knows what image haunts Dean, knows that he himself is the hunters muse. He finds it fitting that the canvas is blank despite Dean trying for over an hour.

You could just paint me as clear he thinks. I am always there, in every setting, every scenery and every stroke of his brush. I will be there until he paints me as gone.

He stands behind Dean and when he tenses Cas knows he has been found. So he ruffles his feathers and appears.

Dean doesn't turn around immediately. He stands frozen, hand poised to drip blue on the canvas, forearms taught with restraint.

"Dean..." Cas reaches and grips the mans shoulder, flushes with how warm the human is.

He turns, eyes wide. "...Cas."

They stand for a minute, Dean looking all over Cas and Cas staring at Dean happily. He's smiling, he can feel his face pulling his lips apart as he grins. He's so happy to just be next to his human that he forgets his proclamations of love and just basks.

Dean doesn't bask. It's like Dean is trying to figure out every color of Cas right there. So Cas inspects the blue tipped paintbrush for a moment before taking it and setting it aside.

"You can paint me any color Dean, why blue?"

Dean is breathing hard and shaking. "I... Your eyes. Blue. So blue. Blue enough I could drown in em Cas." He grabs Cas' shoulder, hand quivering. "I can't... I can't ever get them like I remember them though."

Cas swallows, steps into Deans space, eyes wide as he looks at Deans. "I'm sure you are safe from drowning in eyes Dean," Deans hand slides to Cas' neck and he warms, "feel free to inspect them as much as you desire."

Dean relaxes, a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and suddenly he's pressing his lips against Cas'. The angel starts, hands slipping up the hunters chest as he steadies himself before he kisses back, angles his head and licks across Deans lips.

One of the hunters broad hands presses into Cas' lower back and it's like he set a fire in Cas. He squirms slightly, heart racing as his dreams become reality. Dean pulls away but clutches to Cas.

"You really here?"

"Where else would I go after escaping?"

Fingers dig into his coat. "I didn't think this would be high on your catching up list. "

Cas breathes, thinks about how much intimacy he can get away with. "What do you think kept me going Dean? What do you think I dreamt of doing once I could fly?"

Sure enough Dean flushes in his cheeks. "Cas..."

The angels kisses him again before he can respond. "Of course it was you. Your praying was like a lifeline Dean."

Dean frowns. "I don't remember praying after the first year."

"You didn't have to start it with 'Dear Cas' for me to hear. Whenever you directed something at me, or even thought my name, I could hear it."

"Everything?" Dean pulls him tighter, licks into his mouth.

"Everything," Cas assures, but there's heat in his cheeks as he thinks of the times Dean didn't mean to let him hear, the intimately sexual ones.

"Guess that clears that up."

Cas tilts his head, smiling. "Yes, it does. Will you kiss me more?"

"God yes," he does, kissing him repeatedly and with such heat that Cas wavers a moment. "But inside, ok? Getting cold out here."

“Of course.” The angel glances at the supplies scattered around the raggedy chair. “Do you want to pack up your things?”

Dean laughs once, shaking his head and bending to throw everything back into a bag. “If I were an artist maybe I would care more about this.”

“I don’t know,” Cas picks up the canvas, sees the faint trail of engine grease where Dean swiped his hand across it. “This tells it’s own sort of tale. Can I have it?”

Grunting, Dean shoulders his supplies. “It’s an empty canvas Cas, do what you want with it.” He hesitates, then drops a kiss at the corner of Cas’ lips. “You coming?” he asks gruffly, blushing slightly.

Cas considers the canvas for a moment before following Dean inside. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of lost steam after I used up the song lyrics xD but there will be more fics inspired by songs to come, I have a feeling.


End file.
